This volume provides an up-to-date discussion of a foundational issue that has recently taken centre stage in linguistic typology and which is relevant to the language sciences more generally: To what extent can cross-linguistic generalizations, i.e. statistical universals of linguistic structure, be explained by the diachronic sources of these structures? Everyone agrees that typological distributions are the result of complex histories, as “languages evolve into the variation states to which synchronic universals pertain” (Hawkins 1988). However, an increasingly popular line of argumentation holds that many, perhaps most, typological regularities are long-term reflections of their diachronic sources, rather than being ‘target-driven’ by overarching functional-adaptive motivations. On this view, recurrent pathways of reanalysis and grammaticalization can lead to uniform synchronic results, obviating the need to postulate global forces like ambiguity avoidance, processing efficiency or iconicity, especially if there is no evidence for such motivations in the genesis of the respective constructions. On the other hand, the recent typological literature is equally ripe with talk of "complex adaptive systems", "attractor states" and "cross-linguistic convergence". One may wonder, therefore, how much room is left for traditional functional-adaptive forces and how exactly they influence the diachronic trajectories that shape universal distributions. The papers in the present volume are intended to provide an accessible introduction to this debate. Covering theoretical, methodological and empirical facets of the issue at hand, they represent current ways of thinking about the role of diachronic sources in explaining grammatical universals, articulated by seasoned and budding linguists alike.
The three volumes of Language typology and syntactic description offer a unique survey of syntactic and morphological structure in the languages of the world.
This is true not just for the expression of negatives, but for their interpretation too.
The series empirical approaches to language typology presents a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. The distinctive feature of the series is its markedly empirical orientation.
Defining “ Typology " What exactly is meant by typology in the context of linguistics ? In its most general sense , typology is ( 2 ) The classification of languages or components of languages based on shared formal characteristics .
A tagmemic comparison of the structure of English and Vietnamese sentences . The Hague , Mouton Blake , B. J. 1976. On ergativity and the notion of subject . Lingua 39 : 281-300 Blake , B. J. 1977. Case marking in Australian languages .
The major thrust of Greenberg's work in the past three decades has been in the fusion of these two approaches to linguistic explanation into one, diachronic typology, the cross-linguistic analysis of languages as dynamic systems.This volume ...
What do all languages have in common, and what gives each language its individuality? Language typology, which has developed in response to these fundamental questions, is concerned with the construction...
A thorough rewriting to reflect advances in typology and universals in the past decade.
IMP.2PL TV.ACC today interesting.NOM.SG.F peredaca. show.SG.NOM.F 'Turn on the TV, there's something interesting on.' (Rassudova 1968: 104, my transl.) However, the speaker may also use the imperfective aspect, even though the situation ...
The eleven articles included in this volume tackle the issue of categories from a wide range of perspectives and with different foci, in the context of the current debate on the nature and methodology of the research on comparative concepts ...